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Remote IDE (VS Code)

You can access Oscar's file-system remotely from Visual Studio Code (VS Code). Note that access of Oscar from VS Code is still considered experimental, and as such, 24x7 support is not available.

VS Code one-time setup

To use VS Code you must be on a Brown compliant network or connected to the VPN. Please install the Brown VPN client before proceeding.

September 10, 2023: Some users have reported issues while connecting to the Oscar VS Code remote extension. This is due to a recent change introduced by VS Code. To address this issue

Ctrl (cmd on Mac) + Shift + P > Remote-SSH: Settings

Disable the Remote.SSH: Use Exec Server option

To use VS Code you will need to be connected to the VPN. Please install the Brown VPN client before proceeding.

Step 1: Install VSCode Extension

Install the Remote Development extension pack for VS Code:

Step 2: Uncheck symlink box

Open VS Code settings and uncheck symlink:

Code > Preferences > Settings

Search for symlink and make sure the symlink searching is unchecked

Step 3: Setup Passwordless SSH

Make sure you have set up passwordless SSH authentication to Oscar. If you haven't, please refer to this documentation page.

If you have Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installed in your computer, you need to follow the instructions for Windows (PowerShell).

Step 4: Edit the SSH config file

Edit the config file:

The config file is located at:

~/.ssh/config

If you have Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installed in your computer, you need to follow the instructions for Windows (PowerShell).

Edit the config file on your local machine, add the following lines. Replace <username> with your Oscar username. 

# Jump box with public IP address
Host jump-box
    HostName poodcit4.services.brown.edu
    User <username>

# Target machine with private IP address
Host ccv-vscode-node
    HostName vscode1
    User <username>
    ProxyCommand ssh -q -W %h:%p jump-box

Step 5: Fixes

September 10, 2023: Some users have reported issues while connecting to the Oscar VSCode remote extension. This is due to a recent change introduced by VSCode. To address this issue

Ctrl (cmd on Mac) + Shift + P > Remote-SSH: Settings
Disable the Remote.SSH: Use Exec Server option

Step 6: Connect for the first time

In VS Code, select Remote-SSH: Connect to Host… and after the list populates select ccv-vscode-node

Step 7: Initial Setup

Install and set up of VS Code

After a moment, VS Code will connect to the SSH server and set itself up.

Step 8: Configure VS Code

Important: Please run the following to add a settings.json file to your config. This is because the filewatcher and file searcher (rg) indexes all the files you have access to in your workspace. If you have a large dataset (e.g. machine learning) this can take a lot of resources on the vscode node.

Connect to VS Code first.

You can either create a symlink via the ln command below,

cp -v /gpfs/runtime/opt/vscode-server/ccv-vscode-config/settings.json /users/$USER/.vscode-server/data/Machine/settings.json

or manually create /users/$USER/.vscode-server/data/Machine/settings.json file with following contents

{
    "files.watcherExclude": {
        "**/.git/objects/**": true,
        "**/.git/subtree-cache/**": true,
        "**/node_modules/**": true,
        "/usr/local/**": true,
        "/gpfs/home/**": true,
        "/gpfs/data/**": true,
        "/gpfs/scratch/**": true
    },
    "search.followSymlinks": false,
    "search.exclude": {
        "**/.git/objects/**": true,
        "**/.git/subtree-cache/**": true,
        "**/node_modules/**": true,
        "/usr/local/**": true,
        "/gpfs/home/**": true,
        "/gpfs/data/**": true,
        "/gpfs/scratch/**": true
    }
}

Reconnect to VS Code

  1. Click the green icon "Open a Remote Window" in the bottom left corner of VS Code Window. Then click "Connect to Host" in the drop down list.

2. Select the ccv-vscode-node option to connect to Oscar.

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